Where should I start? I had a wild idea to see if Central Sod would sell me a dozen rolls of Tahoma 31, and I'd lay them in different areas of the yard just to see how they respond to the local conditions. I'm not sure if that's crazy or if it's worth exploring.

I have done what you are considering and think the above is an excellent idea. Figuring out shade Pressure up front will save you a lot of time/effort/$. Tahoma is a really good variety but also not for casual lawn care folks.

 

I am in 7B and made a similar call a few years back, plugging zoysia in my front yard and am still kind of in process in the back yard, which is where I experiment.

Shade concern with bermuda is real. If you sod you will know within a year whether or not you have enough sun to support it. Keep in mind as well that shade is dynamic throughout the season and what went fine in spring before all the leaves came out may look a little funny in the fall after the sun has gotten low and the daylight hours have shortened.

It is really fun to mess around with though, and if you have kids I think bermuda is a great call. In my fescue years if I set a slip and slide out on the lawn for a few hours it would be dead in a week. Bermuda hardly even notices it.

I think if you are going to sod go ahead and pay out for the pallets. They are not really that expensive considering what you get. If you just do rolls you are going to get high spots where those rolls were and it may look silly once you decide "yeah I am going full monty on this."

 

We sodded Tahoma 31 on a neighbor's yard here in central VA and it's great. I'm hoping to make the same conversion you're doing within a few years.

About the sunlight question, I purchased the below light meter to see which parts of my yard would get enough sun. I would recommend measuring sunlight in a few areas. It was surprising to me how much sun was actually required for high quality Bermuda; half a day of sun with no shade during the midday seemed to be the minimum. Also, don't get the light meter wet.

https://www.specmeters.com/lightmeters/dli100/

The article starting on pg 124 gives some approximate minimum dli estimates for Bermuda and zoysia.

https://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/ressum/2018/2018.pdf#page=132

 

If you could post some pictures of the concerned area and at what time of day they were taken we could make an educated guess on if the grass will survive or not. Most bermuda needs 6-8 hours of sunlight to grow healthy otherwise it may become thin.

 

https://archive.lib.msu.edu/tic/ressum/2018/2018.pdf#page=132

Thanks for posting that. I had always heard that a higher HOC will allow Bermuda to grow better in the shade since it results in more leaf area to collect the limited sunlight. But this study found the opposite during spring and summer. Only during fall did the 2" HOC do better than the .75" HOC with low DLI.

 

Anytime. I think there are some articles in this thread that suggest the opposite on HOC. I was only looking at the raw DLI thresholds so I didn't review the results by height of cut.

https://thelawnforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=33153&p=451981&hilit=Viva#p451981

 

Thanks for the suggestions about the light meter. I'll look into getting one and do some tests this spring when the light is more seasonally appropriate. In the meantime, I'll try to take some pictures of the backyard at different times of the day when the sun is out. It's been so cloudy here for the last few days that there's hasn't been a good opportunity.

 

Curious if you went ahead with the Bermuda and how it went.

A few of the area golf courses have switched over the past few years.